Ecology

Bees & Cheese
Talk, Tour & Tasting
Sunday April 3, 2016 2-5pm

Join BeeRepair at Groundswell for an afternoon farm experience. You’ll get a tour of the layered animal systems which include alpacas, llamas, goats, chickens and rabbits, followed by a talk on honeybees and native pollinators, and finishing with a meet and greet and tasting with farm fresh snacks including cultured butter, cheese, jam, honey and mead. $10-25 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. Purchase tickets in advance at iuhoakland.com or at the door. Friends from out of town can stay for dinner and sleep overnight at Groundswell on a donation basis, RSVP for overnight stays appreciated.

BeeRepair, a project of natural Beekeeper K.Ruby Blume, promotes the health and well being of honey bees and native bees through education, consultation and hands-on services. Learn more at BeeRepair.com.

K.Ruby Blume is a beekeeper, educator, gardener author and artist working 100% treatment free in alternative hive systems since 1997. Ms Blume is founder and director of The Institute of Urban Homesteading and co-author of the book Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living Ms Blume lives, loves & farms on 1/10th of an acre in Oakland CA.

After the significant rains of November I had decided to take a walk around camp with our Australian Shepard puppy Pansy documenting the changes to the land. I had originally wanted to do a detailed nature observation while walking through camp up to our pond, paying closer attention to life’s more minute details and capturing them in photo and description. Quickly after I began the walk I realized this would not be happening, foiled by the puppy presence.

There’s a fierce new gang at Groundswell – the chickens have arrived and are laying up a storm. We recently completed our mobile chicken coop, nicknamed the poultry palace, and wasted no time in filling it up with clucking friends. It took about two months and many skilled hands to finish our beautiful avian abode, but now she is sitting proud in the soccer field (the site of our future farm). Twenty six fowl joined us in total. They were previously being raised at Green Faerie Farm, the current home of our member DoubleSnake. Jim Montgomery, or DoubleSnake, is our main livestock maven at Groundswell and has been responsible for bringing us many of our new critters. He was the visionary and designer behind the poultry palace, and will be moving out to Groundswell full time in June. Read more →

January has seen a burst of activity at Groundswell. We wanted to hit the ground running and we sure have, holding two work parties in January alone. Our focus has been on building our new mobile chicken coop, which resembles a small house built on top of a trailer. Over a dozen folks came out between the two weekends to help our with the carpentry and some other tasks around the land, such as pruning our apple trees and demolishing a dangerously ramshackle shed. In between bursts of work we took time to hike around the land, play with the animals, and, of course, enjoy mimosas.